Optimal Control Design for Connected Cruise Control with Stochastic Communication Delays

This paper presents an optimal control algorithm for connected cruise control (CCC) system in the presence of the stochastic communication delays. In the CCC system, wireless vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is the key factor to achieve comprehensive environment perception while it gives rise to delays in the meantime. In order to compensate for the influence of the stochastic delays and develop an optimal controller for the CCC system, we first analyze the vehicle dynamics with the car-following model. Then, the mathematical platoon model is formulated with heterogenous platoon structure. With the objective of minimizing the deviations of vehicle's headway and velocity, a linear quadratic optimization problem is formulated. The optimal control strategy is solved in an iterative manner by using a backward recursion which can be divided into two steps. In particular, the optimal control gain is iteratively derived off-line and the control strategy is calculated on-line. In addition, the control gain convergence, the stability analysis, and the effect of the packet losses and state noises are analyzed. Finally, the stability and performance of the proposed control algorithm are verified by numerical simulations to highlight its superiority compared with the existing algorithms.